As part of TSN's extensive coverage of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger sat down with Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice on the eve of the team's first-round series against the St. Louis Blues.
Here are a few topics that stood out.
On the anticipation of the post-season:
"It's a grind to get there. And then it's like Christmas Day - everyone is excited in this town, they're wired for it, the building's going to be on fire. It's the best time of year to be a coach - you're not worried about a guy's focus or what he's thinking about. It's not mid-February and he's just waiting to get to the end of it. It's arrived now and we're pretty excited about it."
Responding to outside opinion on the team's status as Cup contenders:
"We've got a chance, man. There's something more to that too - we got quite a bit younger, we were aware of that. There was a chance we would have some growing pains. We got out of the gate real hot - we were 30-16-2 after January - so we felt real good about that, but there's always that question and concern. So now we get to the playoffs and there's Tampa Bay and there's the rest of us. Any one of those teams, just look at the match-ups. Our first-round, we've got 99 points so you're going head-to-head with a team that could win the Stanley Cup. It's going to be really exciting. Tampa's going to be a big bear to try to take down, they've earned that. Everyone else is in a dead-even dogfight."
On the team's struggles down the stretch:
"I don't think there's a negative to any of it. We had an awful grind in the second half of our year - lost a couple of defencemen - and still, we get through March with 13-to-15 playoff teams over .500. You're not blowing those guys off it. I just felt in the last week or two we were waiting to get after it. We've got an intense room, which is a good thing. We've got some barking in there and that makes us good. How we played last week will have nothing to do with our game going forward. We'll play the best hockey we're capable of playing, that I know."
On Patrik Laine's play:
"I think the young man leads the league in post hits this year...but at the end of the day it's about getting it off his stick when he can and having the opportunity to do so. He went through a playoff series, he knows that the intensity changes here...but he's got that 'big game player.' He gets interested and excited when the pressure's on, so I think you're going to see a much better player than you did last year. He's more physical now, he's hanging on to pucks, he's doing the other parts of the game that he hadn't learned last year. He'll be a good shooter for us."
